 Aspens are found in most Rocky Mountain States, but in Colorado, in mid-to-late September, they literally turn the hills and mountainsides to gold. But it's not only their beauty that's intriguing. Aspens usually reproduce, not from seeds, but from new shoots that grow from the roots of a parent tree. A grove of aspens is really one connected plant, or "clone." Underground roots connect all of the trees in a grove. And as a single organism, the clones act together as one, coming into leaf at the same time, for example. Some aspen clones in the U.S. have been estimated to be at least 8,000 years old, making them possibly the oldest organisms on earth.
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